Italian envoy in Philippine abuse case protests innocence

MANILA: An Italian diplomat detained in the Philippines on child abuse charges insisted he was innocent and applied for bail Wednesday, as he appeared before a court in deteriorating health.With an arm attached to an intravenous drip, Daniele Bosio, 46, stumbled as he walked out of a heavily guarded police van and into court in Binan, a town about two hours’ drive south of Manila. The judge, Theodore Solis, suspended the intended arraignment session after Bosio’s lawyers appealed his indictment and asked for a bail hearing. “We asked for the reversal of the ruling of the prosecutor (because) he was deprived of due process,” his lawyer, Romeo Lumagui, told reporters outside the court. “He insists that he did nothing wrong, he did not violate any law.” Bosio, who was then Italy’s ambassador to Turkmenistan, was on holiday when arrested in April after a children’s advocacy group told police they saw him acting inappropriately with three boys at a water fun park near Manila. The boys, aged nine to 12, issued sworn statements to government social workers that Bosio had “fondled their sex organs” before he took them to the park, according to the prosecutor’s complaint.